Amanda and Jimmy Armstrong Funky Junk Antiques

Amanda Armstrong had been a single mom for years when she agreed to accompany her oldest daughter to church one Sunday morning. Out of the blue, she says, a man sat down in the pew next to her.

“Jimmy plopped down beside me, and he said, ‘Is this seat taken?’” she remembers, laughing. “I was like, ‘What?’”

Maybe Jimmy had an instinct that the two would hit it off. Amanda was a junker at heart, and Jimmy owned a pawn shop — this year marks his 40th year in business — so the couple had a lot in common right off the bat.

“It was just meant to be,” says Amanda. “He said, ‘I’ve never had this much fun doing this before,’ and I said, ‘Well, my [first] husband never liked junking,’ so it was almost like a meant-to-be thing.”

At the time, Amanda was styling hair for a living, but when the two realized they worked well in the junking arena together, they started a flea market booth at the Midtown Mall in Little Rock. That one booth turned into two, then three, then steadily expanded over the years. Today, the pair own and operate Funky Town Mall in Russellville, a flea market with more than 80 vendors, and sell at several shows like Junk Ranch throughout the year. They also travel to dozens of states to shop at flea markets there.

“We have a smorgasbord of things,” Amanda says of what shoppers can expect to find in their Junk Ranch booth. “We have mid-century modern, we have primitive, we have antique, farmhouse, antique hunting supplies, belt buckles, groovy lamps, collectible pocket knives, furniture, couches; vintage, antique, retro, primitive, mid-century, shabby chic, man cave, farmhouse — I’ve brought just about everything over the years.”

She says that’s one of the things she loves about the Junk Ranch: You can find just about anything there.

“The Junk Ranch does a great job of picking vendors to cover wants and needs and desires that shoppers are looking for,” she notes. “Shoppers are looking for everything — they don’t just want T-shirts or furniture or painted signs. They want everything.”